James, Lyricist
by Lobotomised
Summary: She can't promise that he won't lose her, so she doesn't. But she moves her body so that she can wrap her arms around his neck; so that he knows that he has her now. A fluffangsty ONESHOT about Quidditch chants, animal magnetism and Hogwarts' Head students for 1976-77.


Helllloooo! Welcome, weary traveller on the many winding paths of Harry Potter FanFiction, to this here wee one shot. If you're a reader of _Queen of the Crunk_, fear not! Chapter 17, or whatever it is we're up to, will be up in several days.

Just a little James and Lily vunshot. A bit angsty, a bit fluffy, and (hopefully) a bit funny. Enjoy, and have a happy Sunday!

* * *

**James, Lyricist**

or

**Pigs and Quidditch**

'Ohhhh, one for the money, two for the pig, three _hrr nrr nrr nrr _and four– hey Lil?'

She closes her eyes and counts to three.

'Yes, James?'

'What rhymes with 'pig' and is Quidditch-related?'

'How are pigs related to Quidditch?'

James looks up in surprise. 'What-?' His quill is hovering over a piece of paper. 'You don't know – I'm surprised you don't know that, Lil.' He frowns. 'And I don't feel like I can explain it without a little history lesson.' Pulling one ankle up to rest on his thigh in a sophisticated way, he clears his throat and adopts a smarmy, studious expression. In a voice that is clearly meant to mimic Binns, he drones, 'In 1763, during a match between the now deceased Manchester Mandibles and–'

'Alright,' she cuts in and his face relaxes into a wide grin. 'Point taken. You don't appreciate History of Magic like I do.'

'It just baffles me that you're still taking the class,' he says, amused, stretching his back out and relaxing again into his couch. 'Though if it was History of Quidditch I think I'd pay a bit more attention.' Without raising her eyes, Lily waves a hand in dismissal of the comment.

On this, a rainy Thursday night, the two are comfortably spread out in the common room that joins the Heads' dormitories. As usual, Lily is occupying the armchair to the right of the fire and James the couch to the left. Their belongings and homework materials ring them in wobbly circles and James' sodden Quidditch gear is hovering in front of the fire, dripping occasionally onto the pile of old _Daily Prophets_ beneath it. In menacing scarlet, the title of the top edition reads, '_Death Eater raid on small country village: seven killed.'_

Today the normally buoyant head girl is less than relaxed in what usually is a cosy setting. She is struggling to write an important essay; two feet on Goblin warfare, due in History of Magic tomorrow. _Epic Goblin Battles of History_ is open in her lap and she has no doubt that it contains the information she needs to write the essay, but she has not read a word. Her eyes keep flicking to that top Daily Prophet.

_Death Eater raid on small country village: seven killed_.

She can't think of anything else. It's scary at any rate, but that particular small country village happens to be only fifteen miles from her own town. Her head is throbbing. Her eyes ache. And the words rotate like a carousel in her skull. _Death Eaters… raid… seven killed- _

'One for the money and-a _hurr hurr hurr_…'

This time she counts to five. For less unsettling, yet significantly more maddening reasons, concentrating has become even more of a chore in the last half hour. Ever since Quidditch practice ended, to be precise. _And the problem is_ _he's not even doing anything terrible. Which gives me no real justification for getting angry._

Draped comfortably opposite, James, unaware of her distress, is absorbed in trying to write new chants for the upcoming Quidditch match against Hufflepuff. For the last thirty minutes, whenever seized by inspiration, he has burst excitedly into unintelligible and garbled song, conducting himself enthusiastically with the writing implement. Despite his attempts to compact them, his long limbs are spilling out of the small couch. His glasses are askew, his hair is defying gravity and he is now biting the end of the quill – her quill, she realises suddenly.

She counts to ten.

Then, stretching her arms up and listening with satisfaction to the cracks her stiff spine makes, Lily tamps down the mental chant of _Death Eater… raid… seven killed_ and says very patiently, 'What rhymes with pig…' She kneads at the base of her neck, trying to alleviate some of the discomfort. 'Dig, wig, big… jig, fig… cig –'

''Cig' isn't a word,' James says, waving a hand. Frowning down at his parchment, he doesn't see the look Lily shoots him.

'Yes,' she says, irritated, 'Yes, it is.' She rearranges herself in the chair so that her right leg, currently being slow-roasted by the fire, can enjoy some relief. Entirely of their own accord, her eyes get caught on the Daily Prophet again. Every two seconds by her approximations, a drop of water runs down the collar of James' Quidditch robes and lands on the word 'Death'. The word is magnified by the little puddle accumulating upon it.

**_DEATH_**_ Eater raid on small country village: seven killed_.

Dragging her eyes away, Lily continues. 'Is this Scrabble? You didn't say no colloquialisms or abbreviations.'

Scratching at his jaw, James asks absently, 'What's Scabble?' He is resplendent in his tiny couch, foot jiggling in the air as he hums along to his chants. The sweat that decorated his forehead half an hour ago has now dried and his hair sticks up in every direction.

'Doesn't matter,' she mutters, tamping down another irrational and violent surge of annoyance as she watches him. Her head has begun pounding with a vengeance. 'Tell you what rhymes with pig?' she says with sudden fervour. 'Prig.'

After a pause, James nods. 'It does,' he agrees. A slow smile spreads across his face. 'It does indeed, Lil.' He starts scribbling on the parchment.

This isn't the reaction she was looking for. Frowning, she adds, 'But I liked the line 'three _hrr nrr nrr nrr'_ best. It's more _you_, you know? And I think it adds a little foreign something to the chant.'

'Foreign?' James asks, tapping the table absently with the tip of his quill, watching the purple ink dot the glossy surface.

'Maybe foreign's the wrong word... Neanderthal?'

He laughs, scribbling something onto the parchment. 'Touché, monsieur,' he says in a guffawing French accent.

Lily gapes at him. _Epic Goblin Battles of History_ is snapped shut.

'That's my quill.'

James looks surprised, and then, with an awful, sucking _pop_, pulls the quill out of his mouth and offers it to her with an intensely serious expression. The feather is gluey with spit.

There is a beat of silence as they both stare at the ruined quill. Then, sighing, Lily takes the dry end. 'You are incredible,' she says, awe in her voice.

A huge smile appears on James' face and elated, he pushes off the floor and rocks the couch. 'What prompted this sudden revelation? Which is true, by the way,' he adds quickly.

'The fact that there are at least four girls who would use any number of _Unforgivables_ to be holding this right now,' Lily says, staring at her ruined quill with some awe. 'Somehow females still find you attractive. Who sucks on feathers, James? That is just... incredibly unhygienic.' She shoots a spell at it that dries the gluey feather stiff. 'Either those girls don't know the real you, or there's just… animal magnetism… or something else unexplainable going on here.'

'They do call me an animal,' James sighs with faux-modesty, smirking. 'A predator, a lion–' he tips the couch back a little bit further and waggles his eyebrows at her '-a stag.'

'A pig?' Lily suggests. Her head pounds dully and she lifts a hand to her temple. She throws the quill to the side.

Eyes widening in comical disbelief, James gives a yelp of shock. 'A pig? Me? They most certainly have never called me that.' He lets the couch down on all four legs. 'Lil,' he complains, clutching at his chest. 'That hurt.'

'Pardon? We must have been talking about different things,' she says. '_I _was talking about your chant. Give me what you've done so far.'

Suspicion clear on his face, James glances down at his page. He takes in a deep breath and straightens himself. '"_Ohhh, one for the money, two for the pig, Gryffindors are Quidditch champs and Hufflepuffs are massive prigs_."'

Lily frowns. 'Should you really say that? You _are_ Head Boy, James.'

'I already know that,' James says, ignoring the first part of the statement. 'I've got a badge and everything.'

'And,' she continues unabated, 'there are too many syllables in the second half.'

'No there aren't,' he says crossly. 'Here, listen.' He heaves himself upright again. '"One for the mon-ey, two for the pig, Gryf-fin-dors are Quid-ditch champs and Huf-fle-puffs are mas-sive prigs." It has a clean, rhythmic sound that I quite enjoy,' he says stoutly.

'And do you think the whole house will be able to replicate your "clean rhythmic sound"?' Lily says forcefully. _Epic Goblin Battles of History_ falls to the ground with a sharp thud. The noise is surprisingly loud in the small room.

James opens his mouth to reply hotly. 'What do you–'

Abruptly, his words cut off. Formerly fixed with intent upon the particularly unpalatable syllables of his precious chant, his eyes now flick down to the freshly discarded textbook. After a second, they move up to Lily's own narrowed and watering ones and widen in surprise.

There is a beat of silence as they stare at each other across the fire.

Lily's head pounds.

James's foot has stopped tapping.

The rain beats down, a consistent, clean and rhythmic sound upon the roof, and James' tawny, Fergelina, hoots softly from her perch by the window. The fire flickers. His eyes narrow in a small frown. His wide mouth is quirked downwards in an uncommonly sombre expression.

The silence grows.

The darkening room is stiff with the tension between the young witch and wizard staring at each other across the fireplace. Suddenly, and with eyes suspiciously foggy, Lily breaks the connection. With jerky movements, she snatches _Epic Goblin Battles of History_ off the floor and flicks it open to where she had left off. There are a few moments of silence wherein she reads her library book with ferocious intensity and James sits, immobile, across from her.

'Lil?' The words are tentative. They are followed by a cautious pause. 'Lil… are you okay?'

Her shoulders, held stiffly and defensively, crumple. 'No, James!' she bursts. 'No, I'm not! I've got this essay due tomorrow and my _head_ and your _chants_ and that bloody,_ sodding_ newspaper is just– just–' Her voice breaks.

Across the fire, James is watching her rant with horror, clearly bewildered as to where all this is coming from. She groans and buries her face in her hands. 'I feel mean and vicious, because you're just happy ol' James, singing your chants and sucking on my quills and everything's dandy all the sodding time! I constantly feel like an old, paranoid drudge these days and– and who wants such a wet blanket for a– for a–'

Cutting off her tirade, in one fluid movement James rises and moves across the fire to her. Collecting her limbs carefully in the loop of his arms, he lifts her gently from her chair and nudges himself underneath her. Tenderly, he arranges her shaking form in his lap and tucks her head under his chin. ''S'okay,' he murmurs. With a dirty, callused hand he softly brushes her hair off her forehead. His heart beats warm and steady beneath her cheek. He rocks them gently. 'What's the matter? Tell me.'

The movements and the question are too much: the tears have built up and cannot be contained. What comes next is a garbled flood of tears and snot. 'You're just so p…perfect and w…wonderful and you make me so m…madly h…happy and spitting m…mad _all the t…time_! I– I– and I just can't stop lo…ooking at that _bloody newspaper_,' Lily sobs.

'What newspaper?' James asks with surprise and curiosity. Trying not to upset the rocking, he cranes his neck around to the pile in front of the fire. 'Which one?' He stretches his neck further. 'I can't – Oh.'

He has seen. Lily can't see his face, but knows that he is frowning.

Then he makes some soft shushing noises and begins the rocking again. 'Did you know anyone who lived there?' he asks gently after a moment.

She shakes her head jerkily. 'But my town is j-just one over,' she says, hiccupping and sniffing wetly.

A sudden wave of embarrassment hits her. 'Gosh, look at me,' she says abruptly, trying to laugh nonchalantly. 'I didn't even know them.' Attempting to pull herself together, she moves to get up, but James makes a noise of protest and hooks his arm firmly around her middle, preventing her escape.

'James,' she wails, mortified, dropping the feigned coolness. She can feel that her face is glowing with heat and shiny with tears. Her eyes, she knows, are bloodshot and her hair is a mess anyway. _Awful._

James isn't having any of it, though. 'Hey,' he says lightly. 'Hey. Look at me.' He takes her face in his big hands and pushes her fringe out of her eyes. His forehead is creased and the angle he is looking down on her from is giving him a double chin. His eyes are bright with concern and his glasses have left a deep mark where they have been pressed into the bridge of his nose. For a moment he just stares at her. Then he whispers, 'It's okay to be scared. I'm terrified.' This last part is very quiet.

A good minute passes in silence. James's eyes have become wide and frighteningly vulnerable. 'It's–' his voice breaks and he has to clear his throat a few times, 'it has only really… hit me recently how– how much I've got to lose.' The intense fragility in his expression is so _stark_ it causes Lily's breathing to quicken and then she's once again sobbing like she's heartbroken. 'I kn-_know_,' she wails.

James swipes a fresh tear from under her eyes and then holds her closer, his breath soft upon her hair. He gives her no respite from the distress, though, and plunges on. 'We've got three weeks left, Lil,' he says, his quiet voice faltering. 'Three weeks.' Then, as if revealing a deep secret, he tells her, 'I haven't been sleeping well lately.'

Lily hiccups and pushes his arms away so that she can see his face. Fumblingly, he says, 'I– I… the one thing I can be assured of here is that you and everyone else is safe– but out there?' He shakes his head and can't speak for a moment. Lily traces the movement of his Adam's apple as it works in his throat to produce words and holds her breath to slow her breathing. 'I have these dreams where you're taken away from me,' he confides, his voice hushed. 'I can't stop it, I don't know where you're going, but I know that it's forever and I've lost you. And if it's not you it's Mum or Sirius or someone else, but I– I–' Despite valiant efforts to do so, he can't speak any more. 'Sorry,' gets caught in his throat.

'No, James, no,' Lily assures him gently and fervently between hiccups, hastily swiping the tears from her cheeks. 'Shhh.' His eyes are closed furiously tight and his chin is dropped to his chest. 'Sorry,' he says again, gruffly, giving a barking laugh. His eyes open and he quickly raises his head, intently fixing his glossy gaze on the ceiling. He clears his throat a few times and closes his eyes again.

Cooing quietly, Lily peppers gentle kisses over his eyelids. 'It's okay.' She can't promise that he won't lose her, so she doesn't. But she moves her body so that she can wrap her arms around his neck; so that he knows that he has her _now_.

They stay like that for a long time, long after their tears have dried on each other's cheeks and the rain has become a monsoon on the roof outside. After a while, when Lily is half asleep and the only light in their common room is from the fire, James gently pulls her arms from around his neck. Softly, he slides her back onto the chair, cushioning her head with his hand. Eyes half open, Lily watches sleepily as he reaches down and picks up the _Prophet_. Shoulders tense and head bowed over the newspaper, he frowns as he reads the article. His profile is gilded in the light of the fire, and he looks about ten years older in the semi-darkness.

'I quite like older men,' she tells him mumblingly as sleep begins to blur his edges. 'The Marlon Brando type, not the John Wayne type.'

Head turning toward her, James grins, scratching at the itchy lines of dried tears on his cheeks. In a small, careless movement that seems very significant to Lily, he lets the newspaper drop into the fire. As he turns toward her again, she watches the haunting words curl into nothingness among the embers.

'As usual I have no idea what you're talking about,' James murmurs, slowly coming to kneel by her side. 'Older men.' His laugh is muted, as is befitting the almost-darkness, the rain outside and the light of the fire. Everything is hushed and warm and languid. As her eyes slide closed, he tells her softly and fiercely, 'I will do anything to keep you safe.' Lily smiles sleepily and bats at him with a floppy hand. 'I know,' she yawns contentedly. 'Go finish your chant. I want you to sing it to me when I wake up.'

'You'll love it,' she hears him say stubbornly, and she falls asleep to the tune of 'One for the money'.

And he's right. Two weeks later, when a victorious Quidditch Captain leads his exultant house in a singing a chant that has far too many syllables in it, she sings along. And she notes the clean, rhythmic sound of the shambolic tune and loves it, not because she now thinks it a work of art, but because_ he_ does.


End file.
